COURSE MAP
INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL REPORTING STANDARDS
There is an assignment for the first class!
See the Session 1 assignment
Students who wish to be in the same group can inform us by email prior to the first class.
Table of Contents
Course Schedule 3
Goals 4
Assessment 5
Group Work 5
Group Membership 5
Deliverables 6
Submitting Reports: 5 AM 7
Declining an Opportunity to Participate: 7:00 AM 7
Preparation Tips 8
Group Assignment Grading 9
Making the Most of the Peer Assessments 11
Group Class Participation 12
Course Projects 13
Gauging Reading Intensity 13
Additional Optional Content 14
Session 1 15
Session 2 19
Session 3 23
Session 4 29
Session 5 33
Session 6 36
Session 7 41
Session 8 44
Session 9 53
Session 10 57
Session 11 62
Session 12 66
Session 13 69
Course Schedule
This Course Map is a detailed syllabus that describes the course goals, policies, and assignments. It will give you a sense for our commitment to our collective effort to make this a rewarding experience.
You will probably find this course challenging, but we will do our very best to ensure you are more than compensated for taking on this challenge: you will have the opportunity to gain highly valued knowledge and skills that will help you jump start your career.
Goals
· To help you learn differences between US GAAP and International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) GAAP for events and circumstances where these differences and their financial-statement consequences are particularly pronounced.
· To help you make informed judgments while preparing, auditing, or using financial statements compliant with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).
· To help you learn to think critically about issues that are of paramount importance to accounting thought leaders. Hopefully, you will increasingly influence them as you continue to hone your skills and perhaps ultimately join their ranks. Regardless, our primary goal is to ensure you are prepared to have an informed conversation with them on any accounting issue.
Your rate of career advancement will likely be greatly influenced by the extent to which you master all three goals. Applying IFRS generally requires considerably more judgment than US GAAP, meaning there is much more room for objective experts to reasonably disagree on the appropriate accounting under IFRS. This is a consequence of IFRS providing less implementation guidance than US GAAP.
If you become a preparer of accounting reports under IFRS, your role will be to make these judgments and to convince those who audit and use the related numbers that they comply with GAAP and faithfully represent the underlying business events and circumstances. This will require a much more sophisticated understanding of the business context and relevant IFRS authoritative guidance than is needed under US GAAP. In particular, as you transition from US GAAP to IFRS, you will encounter many situations where there is not a clear answer and where you will need to do much more than simply apply a rule to determine whether the accounting complies with GAAP.
You will also make more judgments if you plan to audit or use IFRS financial statements; in these roles, you will need to assess the level of confidence you have that preparers appropriately exercised judgment permitted under IFRS and more generally, that the related numbers faithfully represent the underlying events and circumstances.
Assessment
Your course grade will be based on: (a) your total course score (out of 100 points) and (b) the way grades are assigned to course scores to form the grade distribution.
Four factors will determine your course score:
Ten group assignments, including class participation 70 points
Course project and course reflections:
Project slides 10 points
Project presentation 10 points
Written report on course reflections (discussed during final session) 5 points
Participation during sessions 12-13 and other groups’ project presentations 5 points
We have not yet determined the cut-offs for the various grades – how grades will be assigned to scores. However, they will likely fall within the ranges you encountered in other accounting courses.
Group Work
As discussed below, your course score will be based entirely on group work, including class participation. The weekly assignments and course project are generally far too demanding for one individual and typically for groups smaller than 4 members.
Group Membership
Considering the way group work will be graded (discussed later), differences in students’ learning styles, course and work experiences, aptitudes, and ambitions, and the coordination and free-rider problems that can occur within large groups, we decided that once you get to know each other, you will be in the best position to determine the group size and membership most effective for your learning. The following guidance is consistent with this objective.
Generally, groups must have 4-6 members and we highly recommend 5-6. This said, we will consider requests to form smaller or larger groups after Session 2. Special consideration will be given to groups that split up, as discussed later.
Groups for Sessions 2-4
Groups are the same for Sessions 2-4. Students who wish to be in the same group can do so by informing us of the names of the members in their group prior to the start of the first session. If your group has fewer than 4 members, we will randomly select additional members or merge your group with another small group. Students who do not specify group preferences prior to the start of class will be randomly assigned to groups. Students that join the course after the first session will also be randomly assigned to groups.
Groups for Sessions 5-11 and the course project
Students stay in the same group for Sessions 5-11 and the course project. You can stay in your original group, form a new one on your own, or get assigned to one. This decision should be guided by feedback your original group gets back in Session 4 related to a Peer Assessment that members of the group will submit at the start of Session 3 (discussed later).
· Your group must notify us via email the day after session 4, whether the team plans to continue working together or instead disband. Considering the way group work will be graded (discussed later); differences in students’ learning styles, course and work experiences, aptitudes, and ambitions; and the coordination and free-rider problems that can occur within groups, we decided that once you get an opportunity to get to work with each other, you will be in the best position to determine the classmates you can work with most effectively.
· If your group disbands, you must notify us via email that you have either: (1) joined a new group and indicate its members or (2) wish to be assigned to a new group. We will assign unassigned students to newly formed groups of 4-6 members or to existing groups if there are not enough unassigned students to form a new group.
Deliverables
For Sessions 2-11, you are to submit written responses to assigned questions via email by 5:00 AM the day the questions will be discussed in class. These reports will be graded starting with Session 2 and groups will be rewarded for thoroughly addressing the questions as clearly and concisely as possible (more later). Be sure to cite sources and include quotation marks when text is copied verbatim from other sources. In the past, some groups have also created notes they could reference when contributing to class discussions (more later).
For Sessions 12-13, you are to submit a PowerPoint presentation on the date your group’s assigned topic is discussed in class. See Sessions 12-13 for submission process and deadlines.
Academic Integrity
The entire group is responsible for complying with the highest academic integrity standard. Absent compelling evidence that a group member violated a policy on his or her own and that other group members couldn’t have been reasonably expected to detect the violation, the entire group will be held responsible for the violation, receive zero points for the assignment (written and participation points, as discussed later) and be reported to the appropriate dean (consistent with the procedures detailed at the above website).
In addition to the breaches of academic integrity listed at the above website, sharing information with other groups when preparing responses to the group assignments is not permitted and will be considered a breach of academic integrity.
Submitting Reports: 5 AM
Submit your group assignment via email before 5 AM on the group assignment due date. For Sessions 2 – 11, you are to submit a Word file and for Sessions 12-13, you are to submit a PowerPoint presentation on the date your group’s assigned topic is discussed in class. For Sessions 2-11, please use the “Assignment Template” word file posted to the “Course Resources” module of the course site. It is designed to facilitate grading.
Declining an Opportunity to Participate: 7:00 AM
To allow for absences, tardiness, and unusual circumstances that would make it difficult for individuals to prepare adequately for the assigned questions or otherwise hinder their performance, each student has one free pass – an opportunity during the course to elect not to be included in the random selection procedure (discussed later) without any negative consequences on the participation scores he or she and others in his or her group receives.
However, students must inform us that they will be absent or otherwise not participating in the random selection via email no later than 7:00 AM on the day the assignment is scheduled to be discussed in class. The participation scores of students who do not notify us by this time and the scores of others in their group will be reduced significantly if these students are subsequently selected to answer an assigned question and they are late for class, absent, or not prepared to give a respectable performance.
Students can elect not to participate in the random selection more than once but they must notify us no later than 7:00 AM on the assignment due date. If they notify us in time, their participation scores (but not those of others in their group) will be reduced but this penalty will be considerably smaller than the one they and others in their group will receive if they don’t notify us, are subsequently selected to open the discussion, and are late for class, absent, or not prepared to give a respectable performance.
Preparation Tips
Develop and Continually Refine Your Process
There is not a one-size-fits-all process for completing the group assignments and preparing to present and defend them during class. Some groups have found it beneficial to meet at least twice for each assignment (or otherwise communicate as a group via email, phone or other electronic means). Here are some general tips, with more guidance provided later for most session’s assignments:
· During the first meeting, divide the assignment into parts and assign these to various group members or subgroups. In this way, everyone doesn’t need to complete all of the assignment on their own. If some parts are prerequisites for others, be sure to schedule delivery dates for the prerequisite parts that are early enough to ensure the assignment can be completed on time.
· For some sessions we recommend ways the workload can be split amongst subgroups. This is based on our estimate of how much work is required for the various questions. We look forward to your feedback regarding these splits: Are they helpful and to what extent do they spread the workload fairly among group members?
· During the second meeting, check the quality of each other’s work and combine and integrate your answers into a cohesive written analysis. Learn from each other, as described below.
Other groups have successfully followed a different process: Rather than splitting the work up, these groups have preferred to work through the entire assignment together.
Learn from Each Other
Regardless of the process you follow, be sure to incorporate a strategy for ensuring everyone in the group is prepared to explain the group’s analyses and thoroughly understands related concepts, procedures, and processes. The primary reason we randomly draw a student to represent the group is to give groups an incentive to participate in this sharing of knowledge.
Explaining something to other group members doesn’t mean they grasp it well enough to explain it during class. After someone in the group explains something, we recommend a couple of other group members share their interpretations of what they heard or suggest alternative explanations. Viewing the same thing from different perspectives generally provides a deeper understanding.
Capitalize on Your Strengths and Mitigate Your Weaknesses
Understanding group members’ strengths and weaknesses, coordinating work effectively to ensure the group capitalizes on members' strengths and helping each other mitigate weaknesses is essential for success. This requires clear and honest communication of strengths and weaknesses and a strong commitment to meeting deadlines and building a highly effective group. Here are some critical areas where group members can contribute: writing skills, analytical skills, computer skills, organizational skills, research skills, and, of course, accounting skills and general business knowledge.
Bring Appropriate Supporting Documents to Class
Generally, students find they need electronic or hard copies of the following to participate effectively in the class discussions, with most students preferring hard copies:
· The assigned questions and your written report.
· Source documents that are not in your report but might be referenced during class. For example, related authoritative guidance, financial statements, or footnotes.
· Use of laptops during class is encouraged, especially for access to authoritative guidance. We trust you will not abuse this privilege and access non-class related content during class.
Group Assignment Grading
Your group score for the ten graded assignments, out of 70 course points, is the sum of your scores for two assessment periods. The first assessment period covers Sessions 2-4, which includes three of the ten graded assignments. You can earn a maximum of 21 course points during this period (= 70 *(3/10)). The second assessment period covers Sessions 5-11, which includes seven of the ten graded assignments. You can earn a maximum of 49 course points during this period (= 70 *(7/10)).